Each year the number of mobile devices increases, and their performance is also increasing. The pace of development of battery production technologies is not keeping up with the rate of growth of the power consumption of mobile devices, so that modern smartphones and tablets usually need to be charged every day, or sometimes several times a day. As a result, charging stations or kiosks for powering the batteries of mobile devices are becoming increasingly more common—they are situated in convenient public places and are free of charge. One of the most popular data and power transmission interfaces may include USB. However, in certain cases the USB port at charging stations may not be connected to a power adapter, but to a computer system, usually a computer. The danger in this case is the possible transmission of confidential data from the mobile device, as well as the possibility of infecting the mobile device with malicious software from the computer connected to such a USB port.
There are certain adapters and cables only supplying power to mobile devices and blocking data transmission. Some adapters may have a built-in microcontroller for additional analysis and filtering of data being transmitted. However, if a user needs to connect a mobile device to an unknown computer in order to transmit data (such as upload photographs onto a computer for the printing of photographs), he may need to disconnect the adapter which is blocking the data transmission or disconnect the filtering of the data being transmitted in the adapter with a built-in microcontroller. At the same time, some such computers may present a danger of which the user is unaware.
Accordingly, there is a need to protect data on a mobile device when interacting with a computer.